Archbishop Dolan's Thought for the Week

March 18, 2008

Dear Friends United in Love and Service of Jesus Christ and His Church:

“I wonder if I did the right thing,” a mother of a teenage daughter asked me after Mass on Palm Sunday. She went on to explain her dilemma:

“My daughter was asked over to some friends to watch a movie on the passion and death of Christ. The friends are not Catholic, but they are wonderful, believing Christians. They had invited a group over to read the Gospel story of the Passion, watch the movie, and then have common prayer and discussion.”

“I was thrilled to let my daughter go,” the mom went on, “until she told me this would take the place of her Palm Sunday Mass. If she went to that, she reasoned, she would not need to go to Mass.”

“Well, what did you decide?” I asked the mother.

“I told my daughter that the movie and the group would be all about how the passion happened, while the Palm Sunday Liturgy was about the passion happening. So, if it were a choice, she should be at Mass.”

That mom gave me perhaps the best description of what our faith tells us about the power and wonder of the Holy Week liturgies I’ve heard in a long time.

She is right on target: the paschal mystery -- the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus -- is renewed at every sacred liturgy. Yes, we remember, but we also relive.

The Sacred Liturgy is not, then, a movie or a “passion play” -- as great as those are -- about how the death of Our Lord occurred; but the actual renewal of those pivotal redemptive moments.

For we believe that the dying and rising of Jesus is of infinite, eternal value, and that we are absorbed into it every time we come together for the Sacred Liturgy.

Mom was right: the Liturgy is not just about what happened way back then; it’s about what is happening now.

On Palm Sunday, as the opening invitation bade us, we accompany Christ right now, with lively devotion and faith, as He enters Jerusalem.

On Holy Thursday, the Last Supper is renewed, not just recalled, as we are at table with the Master the eve before He died.

On Good Friday, we are “there as they crucify my Lord;” not just in a nostalgic way, but reliving it again in the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion.

On Holy Saturday, at the Easter Vigil, we behold the resurrection, as Christ conquers sin, Satan, and death now in the Easter sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist.

It’s not just a compelling story of earth-shaking events that happened long ago.

The Liturgy is “where it’s at” as these saving events continue, are renewed, are happening here and now!

A blessed Holy Week and Easter!

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

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